This invention relates to the insertion of announcement/advertising and related content into streaming multimedia content. It is particularly concerned with the dynamic insertion of such material into a media stream based on dynamic comparison of audience size and composition and predetermined stipulations of the suppliers of announcements/advertising.
Streaming is a process in which packets, sent over an IP network, are used to present material continuously to a recipient as it arrives in substantially real time as perceived by the recipient. As such the recipient does not have to download and store a large file before displaying the material.
Media streaming is a process used to deliver continuous action content media or substantially real time video and audio data to a receiving device such as a PC/video receiver with a continuous steady stream of packets. The receiving device plays back the streaming packets as they are received.
In active presentation techniques a buffering step is required; packets of the buffered content are played back while a subsequent packet is being buffered. In the perception of the viewer the play back is simultaneously presented as a continuous stream.
With the development of IP multicast and unicast protocols and improvements in the IP network and PCs, media streaming can approximate the quality of broadcast media transmission. IP media streaming gives an Internet provider an opportunity to provide many new services to both individual consumers and commercial businesses. One such opportunity is the ability to provide entertainment, news and sports targeted to a particular audience profile. In particular broadcasting of both live events and subsequent replays of these live events is now possible. Material customarily transmitted by traditional radio airwaves broadcasting may now be broadcast over the Internet.
Multicasting and unicasting are both controlled by existing standards and are well known in the art. The more recent multicasting is subject to IGMP (Internet Group Management Protocol) standards.
Traditional broadcasting over the airwaves is largely supported by advertising or by viewer/listener subscription. For mass market entertainment/sports event support by advertising is the norm. The typical viewer/listener is accustomed to this method of financial support for programming.
It would be desirable to use similar methods to support broadcasting by IP streaming. Streaming is new, however, and does not have the predictability of established broadcasting methods. Potential advertisers want to know the effect of and audience size for its advertising. It is desirable to dynamically provide such information to advertisers so that they are induced to support IP streaming broadcasts. It is also desirable to allow advertisers to tailor ad programs to actual audience demographics of streaming broadcasts.
In a multimedia presentation transmitted by streaming media, advertising/announcements are dynamically inserted into the stream in response to a realization of conditions preselected by the presenter of the streaming media content and by the source of the advertising/announcements. In a particular embodiment providers of the streaming media content define metadata describing the programming stream structure. Advertising/announcement sources define metadata describing categories of desired recipients of their ads. The requirements of both metadata files are compared with respect to both content data and ad data to specify conditions to determine which advertisement/announcement is inserted into a media stream and when that insertion occurs.
In an embodiment described herein a Measurements Server in the IP network provides the content/programming data to provide the information for dynamic control of ad insertion by the POPs of the network. The advertiser provides metadata-defining requirements for inserting advertising/announcements. Upon comparative agreement/concurrence of the programming and ad metadata requirements the specified ad is inserted into the stream in harmony with the available resources of the programming.
A first method of ad presentation inserts the ad as streaming content in interrupt positions made available by the program content provider. A second method presents the ads as banners, scrolling text of product icons without interrupting the steaming program content. Streaming type content ads must be carefully coordinated with the program structure of the streaming program content for insertion at appropriate times. Banner ads may be added concurrently with content and hence be more freely inserted at any time.
Metadata files, that characterize programming content and profile the recipients of the programming, basically control ad insertion into the streaming media. In one example the metadata files are expressed in XML (eXtensible Markup Language) a data description language. This language is used to define tags allowing specification of metadata for ads and content. XML, for example, is discussed at http://www.xml.org.